AN: Hello all. See, I told y'all it wouldn't be a long wait. Not even a week since the first chapter. I'll try to keep the UDs as quick as this one, but if school and work gets in the way, then please don't bite my head off. Just warning y'all now lol. Okay, next on the AN list is my apology on not proofreading the first chapter. Personally, I hate it when writers don't proofread and there I go making that same mistake. How hypocritical of me, right? And I know there were quite a few typos and the like because I ended up reading over it myself after the fact. What gets me the worst is this one particular mistake.

Are any of you wondering who the heck Nathan was? 'Cause I really wouldn't blame you if you are. Turns out, he isn't some character that randomly jumped into that second conversation in chapter one. (I think it's the second one anyway.) He's actually Kevin; Nathan was Kevin's original name that I decided to change in development because it occurred to me that if I kept that name, it might have confused some people. After all, this is an AU, I might have decided to make cocky, Strigoi Nathan into a dhampir. However, this is a completely separate character that is cocky and ended up turning Stigoi as well. Very similar. I couldn't have that, so I changed the name as I was typing and obviously missed one. Really, if I just had the patience to read over it before posting, I would have caught it. I was just so excited to get this up, that I even forgot to add my one-time disclaimer.

Alright, before I get this started, please review. It makes me feel so fuzzy and gets me motivated. How about this, the person or persons that either guesses or comes close to guessing what the Aegis can do (don't worry, it isn't really complicated), will get a preview to chapter three. I'll PM the preview, but if too many guess right, then it'll go on my profile. Check on that in about three days. If this doesn't motivate y'all, then what if I told you I handwrite all of the actual chapter content? That may not sound like much lol, but I obviously write more than the average. So, let's see that's approximately...9,840 words according to my word documents. Give or take; I do my actual proofreading on the Doc Manager and I almost always add some words or delete some, depending on what makes my sentences look better. So, if I can handwrite nearly ten thousand words, then y'all can write a few short reviews, right? Please?

Disclaimer: I'm not Richelle Mead, so the obvious conclusion would be that I will never own Vampire Academy.

Two

You know that feeling you get when you play hide-and-seek? The one where once you're hidden, you feel like you have to pee? Well, I have that feeling among many others. Nausea was threatening to overcome me while fear was trying its hardest to get me to whisper to Holly. I needed to hear someone's voice. More than that, I needed to hear a voice that I trusted. Anything to make me feel less alone.

Holly probably felt the same way, but we couldn't actually do it. Strigoi have excellent hearing and anything more than breathing or the occasional shuffle could spell our death. Actually, it would mean worse because of what we are. Instead, we opted to hold hands, anything to tell each other that the other is still with them.

I knew how to be patient; however, sitting here behind these bushes is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. We've been here for two hours now and it's only gotten harder. The only thing my body was telling me to do right now was to run away. To get out; to get as far from those monsters as I could. Not one instructor has ever told us how hard it is to feel cornered. Maybe that comes later, or it's something that can't be properly explained. I don't know; I just feel so unprepared.

Suddenly, Holly squeezed my hand painfully. I bit down on my surprised gasp and turned to her curiously. Well, perhaps curious was the wrong word. Terror permeates everything I do right now, and I can't even properly describe my actions to myself.

Holly pointed off to the left, the side she was watching, and I turned to see, or rather listen, to what she indicated. Fear, oily and heavy, settled into my stomach as the sound of twigs snapping and leaves cracking reached me. Someone, or something, was running towards us. Indecision filled me. What do we do? Stand and prepare to fight, or lay here and hope whoever or whatever, is outside passes by us? In the end, I hesitated and the choice was made for me.

Turns out, it was a person out there and they rolled right into our hiding place before I could even blink. Neither Holly nor I had any time to react before the woman, her size made it obvious, had us both pinned. I prepared to focus all I had to throw her off me; there was no point in keeping quiet now. We were found, and I wasn't going out without making it a real bitch for whoever was to turn me.

"You'll kill all of us if you do what you're thinking," a strikingly familiar voice breathed in my ear.

Holy shit! My reaction was instantaneous. Once I heard that voice, I relaxed, somewhat, and gently released all of the power I'd gathered. Harris and I might not agree on some things, but I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't ecstatic to have her here.

We didn't bother responding to her and I was glad for that, because a few seconds later, her pursuers caught up.

"Damn it! She's here somewhere," a male Strigoi, I assume, growled.

"Why are we even chasing her, Caleb? There are plenty of others where she came from," another male drawled lazily.

"Because the bitch has experience. All we have to do is turn her; we won't even have to baby her like those brats," the first said with obvious distaste.

"Yeah, but that only means she'll be able to think for herself. She'll fight us even after we awaken her. Just forget it. We need to go back to help awaken all the whelps anyway. There's not much time for us to fuck around like this," the second explained.

"I want her," Caleb said greedily.

"You can have her. Just pick one of the feisty ones back at that damn school and work it into what you want. It will be even better than this one. Younger and prettier too. We need to go back or Marie will have our heads," the second one was starting to sound a little worried.

There was a long pause. Either the one called Caleb was ignoring his companion, or he was thinking over what was said. Please, let it be the latter.

It felt like hours before Caleb responded and Harris seemed just as tense as we were during the wait. Looking at her, I could see that she was exhausted. There was no way in hell she could handle another fight. Holly and I would help her, of course, but it was obvious that she didn't want to take any chances. At this point, I didn't either.

"I swear, you bitch more than our youngest coven members. Fine, we'll head back, but if you think that I'm doing another raid with you…."

Their voices trailed off as they walked away and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I can't begin to wrap my mind around the sheer amount of relief that I felt. I wanted so badly to question Harris on how she made it through, if she saw any others, or even what happened, but I knew I couldn't. It was still night and the dark still symbolized our potential destruction.

Still, it was fucking fantastic to have Harris here, even if she wasn't near her top fighting form. She was another survivor. More than that, she actually knows what she's doing. My hopes of getting out of this rose astronomically.

Harris put herself in front of us and even in the dark, I could see her eyes meticulously darting back and forth. Carefully scanning the area for any potential threat. I was glad Holly had found this spot. We could see out much more easily than anyone could see in. Harris wasn't going to let herself get jumped like me and Holly had.

The only thing Guardian Harris's appearance didn't help was the passing of time. I had to rip out the urge to check my watch and stomp it into the ground. Not only did it make time pass even slower, it also had the potential to give us away. The Indiglo could blind a person with how bright it was and I didn't want to imagine how easy a Strigoi could pick it up. I tried not to think how loud our breathing was. Sure, it was pretty audible before, but it really sounded like a third person made a difference. Really, I was pretty shocked that those Strigoi hadn't noticed anything. We must have been the most still we'd ever had. I guess stark terror does that to you.

Slowly, agonizingly, the night passed. I think the worst of it was when we heard the Strigoi leave. They were loud, victorious and cocky. They left in a brisk manner, but it was obvious that their speed was only out of concern for the sun. There was no fear of retribution, they didn't even seem to consider that there may be more Guardians or even Aegises on their way to avenge my classmates. I guess I could say that it was humiliating, but that word will never be able to describe what it really felt like. It was so much more than that. There was terror from the sheer amount of Strigoi there were. Horror, from all the voices I could recognize; I'd only heard them in the cafeteria at dinner several short hours ago. Grief, anger, hatred, regret, they all filled me and I couldn't begin to make sense of them. Maybe I never would. Numbly, I registered that tears were making their way down my face.

Eventually, there was only silence but I can't say it was any better. The silence only seemed to make all that had happened more real. All the death and pain. I guess the only good thing about this was that my mind just finally went completely numb. It made everything pass more quickly and my thoughts stopped returning to tonight's events.

Harris was the only one that reacted when the sun's light finally touched us. She slowly, and I believe painfully, got up and half-heartedly stretched. I guess she turned to see if we were moving, but once she realized that neither of us was ready to just get up and go back, a strange look came over her face. Perhaps it was pity, or even sympathy, but I didn't have the energy to work it out. I really don't even care at this point. I did, however, find myself wondering how she could keep going after everything that had happened. Maybe that came from experience.

"Harland, Hathaway, let's go," she said quietly. Hell, even gently. I think that's what got me to move; how surprising it was to hear Harris be gentle. I didn't like it, I wanted everything to be the same. Harris was supposed to be blunt, strict and a bit of a hardass. Gentle didn't fit.

Holly wasn't quite as ready to move as I was, so I ended up just grabbing her arm and robotically pulling her up. If I hurt her, it didn't register on her face. The walk to St. Mark's was slow and I purposely kept myself from looking at my surroundings. Death can go to hell, I'd seen enough of it. Holly and I had yet to let go of one another and it was a miracle we didn't end up falling over with how robotically we were walking. Completely uncoordinated; I couldn't help but laugh aloud at how funny that mental picture was. God, it was hilarious and I didn't stop until my stomach hurt and tears streaked down my face. Holly was looking at me nervously; Harris didn't react.

Once we finally made it back to St. Mark's, Harris led us to a room that was actually devoid of bodies. I think she was trying to be nice. She said something about calling someone, but I wasn't paying attention. One moment she was there, the next she wasn't and Holly was practically sitting on me.

"Lily?" Holly finally asked after a long moment.

I didn't answer.

"Lily… Lily, come on. I can't sit here in silence anymore. It'll drive me crazy, just say something," she continued desperately.

It took a few moments to gather enough effort to do so, but I finally let out a half-hearted, "What?"

"I don't know, anything!" she cried, "How's your mom?"

I shrugged, "Don't know. She's shitty at emailing me. So's Rose."

"My mom said she was fine the day before last," Holly told me as if I said my family was doing fantastic, "She said Jacob misses me though. He keeps drawing pictures for me, apparently," she laughed very similar to the way I had earlier. Maybe we were going insane. I can't decide whether or not I'm insane already for not giving a shit.

"What do you think they're going to do with us?" she asked me once she regained control of herself.

"I have no idea," I really didn't. St. Mark's was the largest academy there was for Aegis novices and with it essentially destroyed, the Guardians must be freaking out right now. For all of the tension that ran between us, the Guardians still believed that it is their duty to protect us. After all, there were so many of them and they ended up protecting both types of Dhampirs and Moroi alike. Protection was second nature to them. They were in charge of distributing Guardians and Aegises and there just wasn't enough here. They had to view that as a failure on their part, right? If so, they'd probably be arguing amongst themselves for a while. The Guardians don't like to fail.

"I don't want to stay here," she admitted.

Honestly, I didn't either. My greatest desire was to leave this place and never come back. I wonder if Mom will get me-

"Well-"

Holly and I let out a startled cry and the both of us ended up unintentionally throwing desks at the newcomer. Harris deflected them easily. Well, that's certainly embarrassing. I haven't had an instinctive power surge in about a year. Damn, zero days without incident…

"Sorry," we said together.

"It's fine," she dismissed. "I should have given you more warning. Anyway, I've called for help, but it will take some time before the Guardians arrive. I've also found someone else," she stepped aside to reveal a dirty, shell shocked and just crappy looking Ryan.

"Oh my God!"

"Holy shit!"

We both ran to him and practically strangled him in a hug. It didn't matter that Ryan could be an asshole right then. He's another survivor and that's all that mattered right now. He staggered under out weight, but patted us awkwardly on the back all the same. Ryan was happy to see us too. Once we separated, I turned back to Harris.

"Did they say how long it would take?" I asked her.

She rubbed her face, "Around three hours."

Holly snorted, "Good thing we don't need them right now."

I had to agree with what she said. Holly may believe that the Guardians are equal to the Aegises, but that didn't mean that she did not think that they both failed us completely. They did; it all came back to that fact that St. Mark's was supposed to be one of the most secure schools in our world. However, there seems to be only four survivors. In my personal opinion, that's completely unacceptable. A small part of my idly wondered if anything would be different if Moroi went here. We may be more desirable to Strigoi, but the Moroi are more numerous and therefore, they are targeted more frequently. We're taught to defend ourselves and that usually translates to us getting less protection than the Moroi. St. Mark's was supposed to be different though. This never should have happened…

Harris studied Holly for a moment, but apparently decided not to address the matter. I guess she recognized that a few words weren't going to change how we felt about how the Guardians reacted to the attack. Since Aegis Harris was the only fully trained Dhampir, it was decided by her that we would stay here until the Guardians arrived. I wanted to look for more survivors, but Harris wouldn't hear of it. She told us that there might still be Strigoi here hiding in the buildings. To that, I asked why the hell we came back if we were in so much danger. She came back by questioning if I really wanted to wait outside with the bodies. I had nothing to say to that.

"Ryan," I finally asked, "how did you… well, make it? We hid in the forest."

He shrugged, "Edison had me jump out too, but I went back to the other side of campus and hid in the forest there. The Strigoi pretty much moved out from that direction, and there were hardly any left. I came back to campus once the sun rose and ran into Guardian Harris.

I couldn't help but notice that Ryan didn't seem himself. He's a pretty cocky guy. Had I asked him to recount something like this last week, then he would have gone into some harrowing adventure where he saved the day by killing a few Strigoi. I'm sure I'm acting pretty strange right now, but Ryan's a completely different person now. What could have— Oh, Kevin. I'd bet anything that Ryan had seen him killed. Damn, Ryan could be a pain in the ass, but he didn't deserve that. No one did.

We dropped off into silence after that. What could we say? "Hey, the weather is nice," didn't seem appropriate right now. Holly and I had more friends here and I'm sure Harris had lost some people she cared for. Ryan obviously did. So, since none of us were in any mood for conversation, we were left to spend our waiting time reflecting.

There was no way that I wanted to return to the attack, so I focused on the idea that there might be more survivors. We couldn't be the only ones left, right? Honestly, I can't say that there was a high chance there were. Sometimes our magic will skip a generation. My grade was the oldest here and we were torn apart. Well, perhaps some of the Guardians made it through.

Guardians… I couldn't believe that this was… allowed to happen. There was a definite point in the attack that we were able to get communications out. After all, most of our Guardians were killed trying to keep the Strigoi from crossing the courtyards to the dorms. I don't know how long they kept them out, but there had to be enough time for them to get here before the Strigoi turned the school. At least then we could say our classmates were really dead.

Mostly, I watched the others. My mind was too exhausted to think about everything now. Harris was, of course, keeping a close eye on our surroundings. She tensed every time a sudden sound occurred and would pause for a few seconds. Waiting to see if anything would come from those sounds. She did this over and over and I eventually had to look away because she was making me nervous.

Ryan was staring out of one of the windows. Harris wouldn't let him get near it, so he looked out from the center of the room. At first glance, it appeared that he was simply staring off into space, he was obviously focused on something though. Periodically, he would close his eyes for several long moments, as if he were trying to keep something in. His hands would clench until I could see his knuckles go white and his chest would rise and fall roughly at times. Ryan was very… depressing.

Holly was fidgeting. She would play with her fingers, or the loose thread on her shirt. At times, she would chew on her hair. She was sitting on the floor with her knees up and her feet flat on the ground. Occasionally, she would begin to tap her feet with no sort of pattern or rhythm in mind. It almost seemed like Holly still felt cornered in that damn forest. Maybe she did, and wouldn't stop feeling so until we were taken from this place.

I suppose that's what I'm going to have to call it now. St. Mark's had students, teachers and Guardians in it, but with them gone… well, it isn't the same place. At any rate, time passed far more quickly here than it did in the forest. Maybe it's because I didn't have terror induced adrenaline running through me, but whatever the reason, I was glad.

The most unbelievable racket accompanied the Guardians' arrival. Well, it may not have been that loud, but I hadn't noticed just how… silent the campus was until they finally arrived. I barely had time to register that because they pretty much swarmed all of us to check for injuries.

Now that I had other Guardians to look at, Harris looked much worse than I previously thought. Some of her greying, black hair was matted on the left side of her head, her right leg had a highly noticeable limp and I saw one of the medics reveal a nasty slash on the center of her stomach. Fortunately, it wasn't deep and had stopped bleeding. It did look filthy, so the medic was concerned about infection. She was covered in bruises and looked utterly exhausted now that she didn't have to stay vigilant on our part.

Ryan and I had some lacerations from the shattered window. Actually, I had one, but Ryan's much bigger than me, so he got a bit more when he jumped out. I thought we were only going to get basic first aid here, but the medic simply shot my cut with something and stitched me up. The shot hurt like hell, but the stitches weren't so bad.

Poor Holly needed a shit load of stitches on her back and shoulder. I felt guilty because I never thought about this when I made her go first through the window. It had to have hurt, but she took it like a champ.

After the Guardians were certain that we weren't going to bleed to death, they led us to the campus runway and herded us onto the plane they arrived on. I recognized two of the Guardians sitting at the back of the plane from the school. They were heavily bandaged and looked as exhausted as I felt. Six… only six of us made it out. The thought made me sick.

Ryan went to sit by himself and Harris stayed up front with who I assumed led this group of Guardians. I can't believe they only brought twenty. What if there were more survivors? What if some Strigoi were left behind? I guess they didn't have high hopes for us or something. Holly and I sat together. She seemed much more relaxed here than in that room.

My body was out of energy, but I fought the urge to sleep. I was afraid of what would be waiting for me if I did. Holly seemed to feel the same way because I never heard her breathing slow throughout the flight. I looked out the window the entire time. There wasn't anything to see, but I think I wanted that the most. My brain has been overloaded with so much shit, that I just want to concentrate on nothing.

I'm not sure how long the flight was, but it felt ridiculously short. My sense of time was completely off right now and my watch just reminded me of cornered and claustrophobic feelings. One of the Guardians came up to us once we landed and followed us off the plane. I was too tired to feel irritated; it felt like they were treating us like Moroi.

The Guardians directed us to an administrative looking building. Actually, they led Harris, Holly, Ryan and I while a few took the injured Guardians elsewhere. I don't know if they were going to an infirmary or something, or if they only wanted Aegis for whatever this was going to be. Holly, Ryan and I stayed close to Harris; I'd never admit it to her, or anyone else, but she made me feel safest right now. Hell, she's probably picked up on it.

The building we were taken to had a lobby complete with uncomfortable looking chairs, boring paintings and plastic plants. We were herded right through it and into an area with a few offices. Honestly, I have no idea what the Guardians have to do with this place because it looks like some kind of tax firm; utterly boring. Eventually, we were taken to a large meeting room and told to sit at one of those stereotypical long tables that always made me wonder how the people at the ends could hear each other. All the Guardians except the one I assumed was the leader left us to wait for whatever this was.

"Why are we here?" Ryan asked wearily. That was the exact question I wanted to ask.

"The Guardian Council, as well as the queen, would like a report of the incident last night," the Guardian answered.

I bristled at her description of the attack. It had been much more horrible than an "incident."

"'Incident?' How about massacre?" I asked in disgust. The Guardian didn't address me, so I turned to Harris, "Do they really need this now? Seems pretty sudden and we haven't even been given a chance to wind down."

Harris sighed, "They want a report as soon as possible."

"So, in other words, they're forcing us to sit here and talk about something we'd all rather forget," Ryan said bitterly.

"It should go quickly," the Guardian told us.

Holly snorted and Ryan decided to elaborate.

"Yeah, that makes us feel so much better. Kinda like how quickly you guys responded to help us. Six survivors, nice fuckin' job," he said the last part through clenched teeth.

The Guardian looked to Harris in indignation. Apparently, she expected Harris to reprimand us for our attitude. She didn't; in fact, I think Harris agreed with us on some level if not completely. When it became obvious that Harris wasn't going to do anything, the Guardian spoke up.

"I understand that you're all upset, but we needed to make sure that your attack was an isolated incident—"

"'Isolated?' What does that even mean? Of course it's isolated! All the damn Strigoi were attacking us!" Ryan roared.

I was seeing red myself, so I started doing my breathing exercises. It would not be a good thing if any of us lost control. Sure enough, there was a deafening crack as the window in front of me and Holly shattered. I have no idea which of us did it, even Holly looked more pissed than I'd ever seen her.

Harris decided to intervene then.

"Guardian Eltsina, it would be best if you didn't further upset my novices. They've got enough to think about without having to worry about losing control," she said calmly, but I could hear the underlying anger beneath her words.

Eltsina just glared at her reproachfully, but apparently seemed to see the sense in not responding to Ryan because she stopped talking. Ryan stood up suddenly as he tried to calm himself down by pacing the room. I wish he wouldn't, it was only agitating me and I really didn't need that right now. I had to clench my jaw to keep from saying something. We didn't need a fight either.

Finally, three new Guardians and an Aegis entered the room. They didn't greet us as they filed in and I wasn't sure if I felt insulted or relieved. Sure, I was in no mood for pleasantries, but it was still rude of them. The confused faces they made when they saw the window was a little funny at least.

"What happened to the window?" one of them asked Eltsina.

"One of the novices broke it," she answered irritably.

"Why—"

"Let's get started, shall we?" the Aegis interrupted after sharing a look with Harris, "I'm Aegis Arcos, and these are Guardians Ricci, Black and Davies."

All but Ricci were male.

Once it became obvious that we weren't going to introduce ourselves, Harris started for us.

"I'm Aegis Sara Harris and Head Guardian at St. Mark's Academy. These are students Holly Harland, Ryan Morris and Lillian Hathaway," she stated.

I wondered why Harris was being so freaking formal until I saw that Davies had a tape recorder in front of him.

Black nodded, "Very well, would you like to begin, Aegis Harris, or did any of you witness anything sooner?"

We were still silent, so Harris began, "I had been in the administration building when one of the school Guardians burst in to tell me that Strigoi were coming for us."

It all went on and on and I tried to block her out. Arcos and the other Guardians would ask questions for clarification or details occasionally and I couldn't help but think that they were being brutal with how detailed they were forcing us to be. When they turned to Holly and I, we tried to tell our account together, but I ended up relaying most of it. She looked so sick about halfway through that she had to stop and concentrate on breathing. I didn't have an easy time of it though. It took me forever to get it all out because I had to keep stopping in order to get my emotions under control. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of these people.

Ryan was the worst. He didn't burst into tears or anything, but he was so angry. The Council representatives had to practically force everything out of him. Davies just about lost his temper towards the end and I wasn't sure who I was most irritated with. Davies, for not understanding, or Ryan for dragging out one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. I've already lived through that horrible night, I hated having to remember it.

Eventually, the Guardians and Arcos got all they could from us. As they left, Eltsina said something about contacting people, but I wasn't listening. I had laid my head on the table and was too busy concentrating on not falling asleep. I don't think my efforts did any good.

Tip of the Chapter:

I've decided to elaborate on my last tip. Keep summaries to the point. What I mean by this is don't got adding things that just don't need to be there. For instance, "First fanfic," "Better than it sounds," and "No flames," as well as any and all of their counterparts don't need to be in the summary. Personally, I hate "Better than it sounds," almost as much as, "Sorry, suck at summaries." Trust me, I really can't stand that one. No one is thinking anything along the lines of, "Jeez, this person really sucks at summaries," unless your summary is filled to the brim with grammar and spelling mistakes. Those are what makes a summary look and sound bad, but I'll get to those later.

"First fanfic," and "No flames," are nice sentiments and all, but a summary should be reserved for well... summaries and rating disclaimers or even OC and AU (or AH in Vampire Academy's case) tags. If that was your first fic, that's great, but save that for the AN. Both of them, actually. Really, I wouldn't even put "No flames," anywhere on your fic. It'll just invite flames from the people that do them. Author's Notes, however, are the places to put extraneous information such as this tip here.

The reason that I tell you all to keep this stuff out of the summaries it because I talk to a group of fanfic readers on a regular basis. Some of you may not think this way, but many of them expressed that once they saw these extremely common phrases, they would pass these fics right by. Why? It suggests writing inexperience. Readers are frightened of the inexperienced; I won't even touch many of those fics myself. People don't want to read a fic that has the potential for horrible, immature characterization, grammar and spelling errors in the extreme, and/or plot holes so numerous that one wonders how the writer even stringed the fic together. The examples seem a bit extreme, but there are fics out there that are like that and readers like to avoid them. Logically, we realize that some of the fics that have these phrases aren't like that, but it tends to be less time consuming to look for fics that don't have them rather than to click on all the fics that are on the list, try them out, back page when one finds out that the fic is bad and click on the next one. Save bad grammar, spelling errors and awkward sentence structure to be the determining factors on whether fics are bad.